Ramblings

Seven Core Truths About Fear

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist

Or How I Learned to Stop Fussing and Dance With Instagram

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Number one: the term “fear not” is mentioned in the Bible 365 times.

Number two: telling yourself to “fear not” is easier said than done, even as a person of faith.

Number three: everyone fears something, but we all fear something different.

Number four: Psychotic is the term used for a person who fears nothing, not even repercussions from their own actions.

Number five: I have an irrational fear of using Instagram which means I appear there, but I have a lot of anxiety about it.

Number six: the best way to manage fear is to name the fear, accept it’s existence, the push forward with the work anyway.

Number seven: when you can do number six consistently, you get your important work done because you let faith trump fear.

Remember all of this when you follow me on Instagram. 🙂

How to Write Your Book

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Writing is hard.

How do I get through it?

One step at a time.

When I’m in front of the laptop, I’m never writing a book. Some days I schedule myself to write scene beats (snatches of dialogue, setting description, background, and the reason the scene pushes the story forward). Then I write one single full chapter.

The next day I return to pen another single chapter.

Write. Review. Repeat.

The process for revisions is similar. I review critique and beta reader comments for one chapter at a time. If that chapter affects another, I’ll make notes in the follow-up chapter. I revise the next chapter.

Revise. Review. Repeat.

The building blocks of writing and revision stack on top of one another and eventually I have a four act novel or novella.

If you want to write a non-fiction book or novel, that is the simple process I recommend.

Never give yourself the goal of writing a book. Give yourself the goal of writing and revising one chapter. Then write another. And another.

One step at a time means one chapter (or even one paragraph) at a time.

Chapters add up.

The chapter collection is your book.

How did you write your book? Easy.

You plowed through it one building block at a time.

Eyes Wide Like a Child

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. ~Mark 10:15 (New International Version)

…backstage at a recital means mass confusion. Triple the mess, fuss, and chaos when a show is filled with thirty-six people with an average age of nine. Teens in tutus. Joy-filled junior high girls happy to pile on heavy makeup and eyelashes wide like bat wings. Boys in corners chanting out dance steps to themselves.

I was in the middle of it all. Sweating. Trying to keep makeup off my praise dance costume. Checking the dance list two and three and four times out of nervousness for my own routine. Then, finally, forgetting myself and moving toward little bodies. Do you need help? Can you find your jazz shoes? Where is your clothes bin?

I felt a pat on my thigh. A little one. I turned around and glanced into a moon-eyed brown face. Gorgeous braids. Tiny pink lips.

You can help. She said.

I nodded.

Am I dancing next?

I checked the list and told her no.

I’m in hip-hop. You can help me. I lost my costume.

I gritted my teeth. Sweated. Sighed. Swallowed and finally smiled in her face. I didn’t have any idea where her tiny costume was, but because she trusted me, I would rip the backstage area apart until I found it.

She led me into a corner with four lemon-yellow leotards, a pink glitter and zebra stripe pantsuit and black Chucks jumbled on the floor. I held her hand and whispered encouragement words. Stand right here beside me. I’ll get your costume. We have plenty of time before your last routine. Don’t you worry, sweetie. I’ll get you dressed fast.

She smiled back at me. Hummed a tune. Clutched my fingers and waited. I sifted through the wardrobe rack. The floor. The clear bins with names on them. No costume. I panicked and stress-sweated, then looked in her face. She told me her name and smiled once more. I went back to ransacking the wardrobe racks. She trusted me and I was on a mission to find a preschool hip-hop dance routine outfit.

I wish I could say I found it. I didn’t. But I kept the sweetie-pie by my side and one of the more practiced dance parent’s found the outfit and we pulled the preschooler in the glitter-drenched stretchy pants and halter fifteen minutes before she was due to be on stage.

And this post isn’t really about costumes, dance, or little kids.

It’s about that warm tiny, hand. Those wide innocent eyes. That sweet little patient tune.

A child who simply trusted.

We live in a sin-sick world full of complications. We want to fix things and be everything to everyone. But all our Father really wants is for us to face Him, trust Him to help, and be relaxed and confident that the outcome is in His hands.

Faith with the heart of a child. Eyes wide. Trusting. Innocent.

Faith.

Stranger Things

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist 

"All who had come around as spectators to watch the show, when they saw what actually happened, were overcome with grief and headed home. Those who knew Jesus well, along with the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a respectful distance and kept vigil." 
~Luke 23:48-49 (The Message Paraphrase)

Sometimes I struggle with thoughts about the relevance of the cross in these days and times. A cross on a hill. A man who died. People crying out about his innocence after his blood had been spilled. The reasons he died. His acceptance of the mission. His pain.

People stared at a cross and the man who dragged it up a hill and died. Strange.

It’s 2022 and I scan scriptures and speculate. Why does that cross matter? Or, how can it matter? The twenty-four-hour relentless new cycle mentions nothing about a cross.

Inflation. Stocks. Gas prices. Nick Cannon’s newest baby. Herschel Walker’s unmentioned children. Trump supporters. Congress. Balenciaga sneakers. Jobs. Taxes. Mass shootings. Poisoned water. Upcoming recession. Kourtney Kardashian. Vans. Kylie Jenner. BBLs. Virgin suicides. Gender discussions. Do you have enough money to retire? Could you survive on the paycheck of a Starbucks barista? Should you use weed killer on your lawn? Crumbling elementary schools. Wealthy universities. Scandal on scandal on scandal on scandal.

Scandal. The missing link.

The scandal of all scandals. A cross. An innocent man. His blood shed for us.

In 2000 more years, no one will mention Vans, BBLs, or Starbucks. In the years that have passed since Jesus’ resurrected, millions of people still talk about the cross. Still think about it. Still cling to it. Imagine that. Unusual, right? Curious? Extraordinary maybe?

Perhaps a genuine supernatural stranger thing?

Something to think about.

For the Love

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” ~ John 13:34

Palm Sunday. Monday before Easter. Holy Tuesday. Holy Wednesday. Maundy Thursday. Good Friday. Holy Saturday. Easter Sunday. Eight sequential days representing the beginning of the end leading to a new beginning. Eight days that transformed history.

The world has never been the same.

Pause for a moment. Take that in.

The world has never been the same.

As believers, the eight days are as transformative now as they were years ago. At least they are when we consider Jesus’ powerful sacrifice — the blood he willingly shed on Calvary — and that He walked through those eight days for us.

With grace and prayer and acceptance of God’s job for him, Jesus did the unfathomable. He walked. He taught. He forgave. Amid mental and physical pain and while enduring a whirlwind of emotions. While having a front-row seat to disturbing religious traps, wicked betrayals, and scandalous political posturing. Beaten and bleeding and driven half out of his mind with pain, he carried the cross to the end that became the beginning.

For us.

And he gave us this command: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” ~ John 13:34

He spoke the command on the day we call Maundy Thursday. Maundy means “mandate”. Jesus understood he was about to be betrayed. He was about to predict Peter would deny him later. Jesus should not have been able to think about a bold command let alone give the mandate to the disciples, but He did.

Why?

Because of the greatest force known to humanity: love. He transformed our fates out of love. He gave us everlasting life out of love. He wiped our sins away out of love. As authors and creators, the most dynamic force driving us to bear fruit should be love. Love for our brothers and sisters of faith and love for those who do not yet know Jesus Christ.

Our greatest lesson from the eight sequential days representing the beginning of the end leading to a new beginning? Love no matter the circumstance. Love with forgiveness. Love with boldness.

Love as Jesus loved.

Holding On To God

Posted on by K.L. Gilchrist
Photo by Christiaan Huynen on Unsplash

The Boom

The boom happened a week and a half before Thanksgiving, 2020. 

“I’m sorry, but your daughter has died.” The tired-looking blonde nurse spoke those words calmly, in a direct fashion, to me, my husband, and my daughter. 

I listened to her words. I did. But really, what I felt and heard was a boom. A sudden crack came from the base of my brain. Not like a short bang but more like rumbling thunder.

Boom. This is not a test.

Boom. Your daughter is gone.

Boom. Welcome to the night. Hope you brought a flashlight.

After phone calls and prayer from a chaplain, all we were left with was the boom. 

And no one wanted to enter the hospital room to be with my deceased daughter. My husband said he couldn’t. My little daughter begged to stay with her father. My son remained hours away, alone with his tears and grief, heeding our words, telling him not to drive up I-95 to meet us until daytime. 

I had no flashlight, but I crept toward the hospital room and approached her bed anyway. A young nurse stood in the corner, nodding at me tentatively, holding back tears. Bedside, I transformed into a brave mama for the last time for my middle girl—warrior mama to the broken sparrow. I ran my fingers through her short dry hair. I rubbed the tips of her delicate fingers and memorized the feeling of blood still running warm through her veins. I massaged her nut-brown feet and surveyed the chipped purple nail polish on her toenails. And I babbled. And I apologized to her. Sorry that she’d miss the next trip to Universal Studios, but I’d never forgotten when I took her there at age nine, and we rode Pteranodon Flyers together. She’d never see BTS live. On her eighteenth birthday, we wouldn’t get to stay at The Plaza in New York and talk about Eloise, the children’s book we’d loved reading together. I wouldn’t get to be in the room to zip up her wedding dress or help her squat to give birth. I’d miss all that, and I’d miss her. That’s what I told her.

The nurse in the corner nodded to me again, “Sounds like you were a real good mama.”

I watched my tears wet the speckled floor tiles. “I tried,” I said.

The Darkness.

The boom gave birth to abrupt midnight with a missing moon. My daughter’s death day and the accompanying grief, pain, and vicious feelings of loss catapulted me right onto a darkened road without a guide. To stumble home into a new reality was a journey like none other I’d ever experienced, and sometimes I felt like family members walked right beside me. Still, most times, my relationship with my teenage daughter was so precious and personal, no one else, not even my husband, could understand that death had ripped out a piece of my heart.

I’d never felt pain like that before. Not when Nana died or when Daddy died. Not even when the doctors told me I nearly hemorrhaged to death after giving birth to my third child. 

This was different. 

It was open, yawning, silent but screaming dark that swallowed me whole and pantomimed to me, telling me I had to remain in agony. That type of darkness didn’t go away when I woke up and slid open the curtains in the morning. No. It breathed and lived and changed my brain chemistry, erasing my ability to think positively. It permanently changed my personality in the three days immediately following my child’s death. I learned to smile outwardly. I play-acted talking, hugging, and consoling my husband, son, and daughter. 

Alone, seven days after the boom, lying in bed, inside the darkness with my heart slaughtered, I reasoned with myself and the Lord. Whispered to Him with ragged, tear-filled breaths: If you want me to stay…give me another day. If there’s no reason for me to be here, cut my oxygen tonight and bring me home to you. 

I woke the following day, and it dawned on me that I had to decide how to move forward. Me. No one would choose for me. I could wallow in torment for the rest of my life, reliving those midnight moments until sanity ceased. 

Or I could make a different decision. 

I could behave as though Jesus truly is the light of my life and focus all my thoughts and actions on the only thing giving my world illumination.

The Decision.

I figured, if all I had were God, then He would have to be all I needed to get through the good, bad, or indifferent moments for however long He allows me to remain on earth. I decided to double down on Him.

When I got up out of bed after asking God to take me home, I looked to Him for everything. Not out of drudgery but because I genuinely needed Him to survive. Morning devotions took on a different depth. Prayer times had new meaning. At night, I used my phone to play scripture or prayers while I slept. During the day, I listened to encouraging Gospel songs and Christian instrumentals. I’d wrap my arms around my husband every evening and pray with my head resting on his shoulders. I went to the Lord for comfort. I went to the Lord for insight. I even went to Lord and asked him to send light through laughter — and I’m sure he forgives me for listening to crazy Kevin Hart a few times.

The Lord heard my prayers and sent earthly angels. Friends and friends of friends who prayed on my behalf. A dear friend sent me several excellent books by author Nancy Guthrie. Guthrie’s Holding On To Hope never left my nightstand. I filled the book with multi-colored Post-It notes and highlighted every helpful scripture in it. Her writings helped me understand the boom, the darkness, and God’s ultimate invitation: to walk with him during agony and sorrow to experience his healing presence fully.

Still Here.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, my decision to hold fast to the Lord during suffering was a decision to have a closer walk with Him. The more I walked, the easier it became to endure the darkness. Holding onto God and my mind after my child passed away wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m still here. 

Still. Here. 

Because He wants me to be here, in June 2021, still here were the first words I wrote on my Facebook story after abandoning social media for months. 

Still. Here.

Even when I walk through the dark valley of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)

Still. Here.

In his kindness, God called you to his eternal glory by means of Jesus Christ. After you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. (1 Peter 5:10)

Still. Here.

Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. (James 4:8)

For whoever reads this, wherever you are, read my testimony and understand that no matter what you have been through or what you’re currently going through, there is a God who will walk with you through pain and utter madness. If you don’t know Him, get to know Him. He is the light that holds steady in the darkness, and He will meet all your needs. 

Just trust Him. He will be there for you.